ALL ARTICLES

In 1996, a particularly devastating nail was driven into the coffin of “homosexuality is a choice” rhetoric. A team of researchers found that the more older brothers a boy has, the greater the likelihood that he will grow up to be gay. Since the research was first published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, many …

Free Inquiry congratulates American Atheists as it nears its fiftieth anniversary year. The organization was founded by the activist Madalyn Murray O’Hair in 1963, soon after O’Hair’s victory in one of two consolidated U.S. Supreme Court cases that ended mandatory prayer in public schools. During most of its early years, American Atheists was the movement’s …

Some American cities are suffering a new problem: abandoned churches. The Philadelphia Inquirer recently reported that officials in the City of Brotherly Love can’t cope with once-stately temples that “decay into neighborhood eyesores.” “There are now so many shuttered houses of worship – at least 300 estimated across the Philadelphia region – that anxiety over …

  Sergei Kapitza, 1928 – 2012 In early 2012, Sergei Kapitza won the first gold medal awarded by the Russian Academy of Sciences for his “outstanding achievements in the dissemination of scientific knowledge.” This was appropriate, because Kapitza was one of the few people–one of the important few–who could be described as a “science popularizer.” …

Thanks to the Brothers Grimm, we are all familiar with the tale of Hansel and Gretel, the young brother and sister who were abandoned by their father and stepmother in the woods of medieval Germany. While the tale is fiction, it is actually a metaphor for a practice that was rather common during long stretches …

For the moment, let’s set aside the problem of why God doesn’t do what is right regardless of whether people pray. And let’s set aside the problem of what god, if any, is answering prayers. Finally, let’s also set aside the problem of why God doesn’t answer important prayers—like those to alleviate world hunger, those …

Most obituaries written shortly after the August 15, 2012, death of best-selling science-fiction writer Harry Harrison remembered him as the author of Make Room! Make Room!, the novel upon which the Charlton Heston movie Soylent Green was loosely based. But Harrison’s significance to the genre of science fiction, and to secular humanism, transcends this distasteful …

Several years ago, I held a position at Nipissing University in Canada that involved working with students to improve their writing skills. At the time, all students admitted to the publicly funded university had to take a writing competency test, and I typically used the student’s test as a starting point for our work together. …

Meaning and Value in a Secular Age: Why Eupraxsophy Matters—The Writings of Paul Kurtz, edited by Nathan Bupp (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2012, ISBN 13: 9781616143215) 265 pp. Paper, $19.00. It may be difficult to recall nowadays, but there was a time when the greatest atheists were philosophical giants. They matched their metaphysical, theological, and …

The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, by Stephen Greenblatt (New York: W.W. Norton, 2011, ISBN 978-0-393- 06447-6) 356 pp. Hardcover, $26.95. Distinguished Harvard University professor Stephen Greenblatt contends that rediscovery of the lost Lucretius poem, De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things), helped trigger the Renaissance, the Age of Reason, the Enlightenment, and …

Mortality, by Christopher Hitchens (New York: Twelve Books, 2012, ISBN ) 104 pp. Paperback, $22.99. A constant reflection on demise is a good thing. — Christopher Hitchens To devotees of Christopher Hitchens, of which I am unabashedly one, his final tome is a heartbreaking journey’s end; not because of pathos or sentimentality, which he avoids …

That’s Not What They Meant!: Reclaiming the Founding Fathers from America’s Right Wing, by Michael Austin (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2012, ISBN 978-1-61614-670-2) 285 pp. Paperback, $19.00. The Founding Fathers these days are a bit like Silly Putty – they can be stretched into just about any position. Political commentators on the Right and the …

The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ, by Daniel Boyarin (New York: New Press, 2012, ISBN 978-1-59558-4687) 223 pp. Hardcover, $21.95. Author Daniel Boyarin’s approach in The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ seems akin to one that believers in Mother Goose and Santa Claus might take. Instead of focusing on …

  Still Life with Lamp and Dogs Brooke Horvath Pillows covered in vines & flowers rest upon the armchair They must have lain there awhile they are so overgrown Two grey pillows on the couch like rocks on rocks Two dogs, one per pillow, one dog dreaming, one awake… As for the lamp– who knows? …

On Saturday, March 3, 2012, the Council for Secular Humanism and the Center for Inquiry presented one of the feature events of their cosponsored conference, “Moving Secularism Forward,” held at the Hyatt Regency Orlando International Airport in Orlando, Florida. Four distinguished speakers from across the political spectrum addressed the question, “Does Secular Humanism Have a …

Happy Women’s History Month to all of us. Let me just give you one historical fact: we all know about Paul Revere, but I bet you don’t know about the Ludington sisters. Paul Revere rode his horse through Boston, but the Ludington sisters covered the entire damn state of Connecticut, and no one wrote a …

Politics is a dirty affair. Of course the men and women aspiring to become politicians don’t dress like ditchdiggers. On the contrary, aspiring politicos invariably wrap themselves in the finest formal business attire of our culture. This is plainly to impart to us the seriousness of their intentions but also perhaps to cloak the squalid …

I am a secular humanist. I am also a libertarian. The fact that one finds very few libertarians as members of official secular humanist organizations should be a tip-off that official secular humanism does have a political agenda. First, what is “official” secular humanism? Lots of the groups participating in the Orlando, Florida, “Moving Secular …

The question at hand is, “Does secular humanism have a political agenda?” To address this question, I’d first like to characterize relevant features of what might be called the “secular humanist community”—as distinct from any philosophy of secular humanism—and in so doing reframe the question slightly to focus on secularism and the secular movement. Then, …

We humanists have made our presence felt. Often our rhetoric is self-assured. Vividly displayed is our willingness to confront the theism-bias embedded in the workings of the United States. Despite all this, humanist activities still appear entrenched in an apologetic mode—a significant expenditure of resources meant to say, “We are here, and by the way, …

Some philosophers are not safe to approach until one is quite certain they are dead. American neo-pragmatist Richard Rorty is one of them; like Jacob Marley, he is most assuredly and unequivocally dead. Five years in his grave and the man has lost little of his power to intimidate. The sheer breadth of Rorty’s oeuvre, …

  Theory without data is myth: data without theory is madness. —Phil Zuckerman Since my emancipatory introduction to secular humanism through Free Inquiry about eight years ago, I have immersed myself in the literature, having read authors from A (Bob Avakian’s Away with All Gods!) through Z (Phil Zuckerman’s Atheism and Secularity and Society Without …

If there was a hell, it would be garlanded with icicles. According to recent survey data, two longtime dreams of American secularists have come true: Charitable giving by Americans to churches and religious organizations actually declined in 2011. What’s more, it fell in three of the last four years. For the first time in fifty-four …

In the August/September issue of Free Inquiry, Leading Questions featured a discussion between science journalist Chris Mooney and Johan Braeckman, professor of philosophy of science at Ghent University in Belgium, on growing belief in Islamic creationism in Europe. Below, Braeckman talks about attitudes toward evolution popular among Muslims today that have been strongly shaped by …

Humanism and Politics To Ronald A. Lindsay’s fine editorial (“Humanism and Politics,” FI, August/September 2012), I would like to add that psychological researchers have done some interesting studies lately attempting to locate the personality traits that impel people either toward conservatism or liberalism in their politics. Generally, liberals will manifest a strong tendency toward a …

As I write, the latest issue of New Humanist (July/August 2012), the magazine of the United Kingdom’s Rationalist Association, has come out with an article by Richard Smyth titled “Down With Secularism.” Smyth thoroughly rejects ideas of a separation of church and state, or as we might rephrase it, of keeping religion out of government …

In the skeptical and atheist communities, we often wring our hands over how much infighting goes on. Every time another firestorm of controversy consumes the Internet, many of us become alarmed at the rifts dividing our community: weakening us, burning us out, making it harder for us to work together on issues that we have …

Should your elected officials have the authority to tell you what you can eat or drink? New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is, to his credit, one of very few politicians in the United States willing to engage in any way with threats to public health. He has been very concerned about the toll obesity has …

It is ironic that America has embarked on the monumental project of teaching the world about democracy at a time when its own democracy is in a state of decay and degeneration. It seems to me that the most important lesson that America can teach the world in the twenty-first century regards the conditions that …

President Barack Obama’s cherished pilotless drones—with their corollary civilian corpses—have hardly been mentioned in the 2012 elections. Even the widely available news that Obama regularly focused on a drone “kill list” to decide whom to assassinate overseas (including three Americans so far) faded away in the news mists without any rousing congressional speeches or Sunday …

  For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds; Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds. —William Shakespeare “I am a scientist, and I am also a Christian,” said the man. “And I am offended! Personally and deeply offended that you would characterize my beliefs as delusional.” Thus began the question and answer part …

In the early 1950s, I was a guest on a Sunday evening talk-show in Indianapolis discussing the overpopulation problem. World population then was less than a third of today’s seven-billion-and-counting. The following morning’s newspaper headlined a hysterical rant about the audacity of discussing something so controversial in anything above a whisper. The talk-show host was …

Historical awareness is woefully spotty. Everyone knows that World War II killed perhaps forty million people. But few have ever heard of a bizarre religious war that inflicted similar slaughter. China’s Taiping Rebellion in the mid-1800s was the bloodiest civil war in human history and possibly the worst conflict of any type, depending on whose …

In a spirited polemic against “spirit”-talk (“Excrement Eventuates,” FI, February/March 2012), Tom Flynn invites us to join him on what he calls the “welcoming shores” of a “wholly dis-‘spirited’ naturalism”—a place where the natives reject all “spiritual security blankets” and sternly contemplate the fact that everything in life is all just “shit happening.” Sorry, Tom. …

I welcome Andy Norman’s riposte. Still, after several close readings I cannot escape three conclusions: With all good intentions, he underestimates the scope of the problem. He inadvertently makes my point that spirit-talk is corrosive of naturalism. He underestimates how easy spiritual language is to avoid. 1. The Scope of the Problem Norman argues that …

I was genetically designed to be a Jehovah’s Witness. I say that because, unlike so many others, I did not join the religion at the behest of a smiling face knocking at my door one morning but rather because my parents were Jeho­vah’s Witnesses. And they were both Jehovah’s Witnesses because their parents were Witnesses. …

Music appreciation is almost impossible to explain as a product of evolution, as illustrated by this quotation from Charles Darwin in The Descent of Man: “As neither the enjoyment nor the capacity of producing musical notes are faculties of the least use to man . . . they must be ranked amongst the most mysterious …

Nonbeliever Nation: The Rise of the Secular Americans, by David Niose (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, ISBN 978-0-230-33895-1) 240 pp. Hardcover, $27.00. One of the classes that I teach within the secular studies program at Pitzer College is called “Secularism: Local/Global.” A major goal of the class is to understand and analyze the political and …

A Judeo-Islamic Nation: The Evolution of America’s Political Theology, by Thomas Mates (Minneapolis: Mill City Press, 2011, ISBN13 978-1-936780-76-1) 239 pp. Paper, $14.95. Now and then a self-published book demands inclusion in Free Inquiry’s review section, even though we can’t find space to consider all the deserving works from mainstream publishers. With A Judeo-Islamic Nation, …

Could I Vote for a Mormon for President? An Election-Year Guide to Mitt Romney’s Religion, by Ryan T. Cragun and Rick Phillips (Washington, D.C.: Strange Violin Editions, 2012, ISBN 978-0-9837484-5-8) 132 pp. Paperback, $12.95. Before this review can proceed, we must accept two assumptions: an avowed secularist has no chance of becoming president in this …